


Gemini

by ragefear



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: But only in Chapter 2, Canon-Typical Violence, Context spoilers for season 2 and beyond, Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 4, The Hunt, The Slaughter, Yes all my OCs are named rae, no I don't take criticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragefear/pseuds/ragefear
Summary: Statement of Rae, last name unknown, regarding their imminent demise. Statement taken directly from subject, 26th of June 2016.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Gemini

When Jon arrives at his office, he can immediately tell something is amiss. It’s not the overbearing amount of Knowledge pressing at the fringes of his mind--it’s that his door is slightly ajar, and upon closer inspection, the doorknob has been caved in. His gut twinges, and he knows that some great danger lurks inside his office. But then again, what place  _ doesn’t _ have a vague but ominous threat lurking in the shadows these days?

He taps the door with his foot, and it swings open with a pained creak that he knows wasn’t there yesterday. Today’s great danger is leaning back in his chair, combat boots propped up on his desk, hat over their face, arms crossed over their chest, which rises and falls in the shallow, even patterns of sleep. The spikes carpeting their red leather jacket glitter in the fluorescent light cast through the hallway.

While the ungodly shriek of the hinges doesn’t seem to move them, when Jon flicks on the lights, the resting figure becomes a blur of motion. They nearly topple backwards, arm flying out to snatch their hat a moment before it hits the ground. Landing on their feet with a bit of a stagger, Jon knows that he has just witnessed a performance. A well-practiced visage of awkward clumsiness meant to put him at ease. Of course, with this knowledge, it does the exact opposite. They walk around his desk, shooting him what he assumes is supposed to be a disarming smile, and then they sit on the other side, propping up their boots, looking at him expectantly.

They want to make a statement.

It could be Jon’s new arcane knowledge, but more likely it’s the only logical reason why someone of this… nature… would be sitting in his office, waiting for him. If they didn’t want to kill him. And Jon suspects that if they wanted to kill him, he may very well have been long dead.

When he takes his seat, opening a drawer for a tape recorder, he freezes for just a moment. A brief pain flashes through his mind, and he can see-but-not-see two chains around their neck, each pulling in opposite directions. He can see the flesh of their throat warped under the force of it, bruised and swelling. And he can see the tension in their jaw, holding that smile in place, teeth on the edge of shattering. The vision passes, but the knowledge imparted sticks with him:

They are marked, twice over. 

He sets the tape recorder between them on the desk.

“You’re here to make a statement?”

They nod, and when they open their mouth to speak, at first all that comes out is a croak. Jon remembers the chains, but then they clear their throat and continue.

“Yes.”

“Do you know how it works?”

They pause, thinking over their words. The Archivist is struck by how young they look, and how their green eyes reflect the light in a way that’s not quite human.

“I tell you my story,” they finally say, working through the gravel in their voice. “I tell you my story, and you record it on your little tape thing.”

“Correct. I’ll start the tape, I’ll ask you your name, give a few identification markers, and then you tell your story.”

The tape recorder starts with an audible click, and the Archivist begins his work.

“Statement of…”

The tape runs for a second. He catches the eye of his guest, who opens their mouth, closes it, then opens it again, after too much thought.

“Rae.”

“Last name?”

“I… I can’t remember. Sorry.”

“Statement of Rae, regarding…”

“My, uh, what I assume to be my imminent destruction.”

“...ah. Statement taken directly from subject, twenty-sixth of June, 2016. Statement begins.”

There is yet another long pause. Jon considers, briefly, starting the tape over, in order to cut out all the dead air. But then, with one breath, Rae begins to speak, and he has no choice but to listen.

“I’m going to die, Mr. Archivist. I don’t have any other choice. Of course, it’s like that for everyone--or, mostly everyone, anyways. But for me, it’s different. See, I’m being pulled in two completely different directions, and I’m not sure who’s going to get my body in the divorce.”

They laugh genuinely at their own joke, to chilling effect.

“The question is, how far back should I go? When did I know something was… wrong?”

More dead air. A flicker of genuine emotion crosses their facade--and then the practiced casualness returns.

“When I was eight, I took a martial arts class. Martial arts are different from combat training. They're all about discipline and patience and patterns. I took to it well enough. As much as any seven-year-old can take to discipline and patience. 

But as soon as you put me in a sparring ring, all that discipline went right out the window. I was a terror. I chased kids around the ring. I pummeled them. They had to pull me off this one kid--I was banned from tournaments for a year, until my teacher could really enforce the “discipline” side of things.

I’ve always carried this immense violence inside of me. Everyone I ever met, I assessed them. How easy would they be to kill? How easy would it be for them to kill me? That energy terrified me. But what scared me more was the thought of losing it. Being... empty. But it was wrong. It could hurt people. People I loved.

I tried to channel that energy into something else--anything else. I took up hobbies. Pest control. Piano. Art. Sports. Though… sports didn’t last long. Losing could get a little, well, dangerous.

When I graduated high school, I went off to a small town religious college. It was a last-ditch effort to find some outlet for… this. And I met someone.

He was hunted, or a hunter. He knew what it was like, to watch your shadow, to scan through the trees, looking for the next threat, or the next meal. He was... sharp. And he was the only person I could talk to, really talk to, about this ever-present anxiety. He understood it. 

Have you ever seen a flywheel on a piece of heavy machinery? It's a big, thick, steel wheel, that allows a kind of transfer of force. You might look at the drive mechanism and think it's too small. But it pushes that massive, weighty wheel to spin and spin and it's so big that it can drive things much larger than itself. And once it gets going, it doesn't stop.

It turns and turns and turns and turns and the machine grinds and pulls and ties and whatever else it's meant to do. And with the power of the flywheel behind it, it won't stop for anything. Anything.

I hunted together with him. That was the closest I ever was to choosing a side--or being chosen by a side. But he tried to stop the wheel. He found a girl, he tried to make-believe he had real feelings. 

I dreamed about killing him, for two years.

I ran away, then. Escaped to the woods. I had the skills and the materials, and I thought I could keep people safe. I didn't quite understand all this, about the two entities vying for a new avatar. I knew something wanted me, and I was determined to stay my own.

I wasn't sure how long I was out there. I survived at least two winters. I calculated it afterwards--I think I was out there four years. I hunted animals, killed them with my hands. But I always left far more kill than I could use.

See, Archivist, the Hunt isn't really about the killing. It's about the pursuit. The chase. The fear in your prey's eyes when they see your shadow and bolt, and when they stop to rest, they see you waiting there for them. The killing happens, but it isn't... a part of the hunt. All killing, really, belongs to the Slaughter. 

The sound of a neck breaking. Blood on your hands. Terrified screams of the dying. When you stand there, alive, among corpses stacked on corpses.

I found a group of campers on horseback, once. The girl he'd married, she was always into horses. That's all the provocation it took, before I..."

They stop, their throat cutting them off with a choking sound. It occurs to Jon that they are still so human, their eyes wide, face pale, staring at their own hands for just a moment. They are marked, but unclaimed.

"The group had guns. It didn't matter. They sat down to cook supper and I killed their horses one by one. One of them shot at me, missed, and by then it was too late. Six people, six horses. Not that many, in the grand scheme of things. But by then, the Slaughter seemed to think it had me. 

So the Hunt had to reclaim their lost follower. They sent a Hunter after me. Or… maybe I was just in his territory. Maybe it was because he knew me. I'd kept myself from killing him once, at a great cost. Now, I couldn't escape it. We would see who was the better killer, now.

Well, it was me, of course! I'm here now, aren't I? I think he expected a dance. A long, drawn-out chase, like we used to. A cat and mouse game, unsure of who was which. But I just left myself wide open, waiting, and when he gave himself away, I tore him apart."

The tape runs for another long second. They look so young.

"And from then on, it's been a dance. The Hunt saves me from the Slaughter, and the Slaughter from the Hunt. I do both. Any time I move too close to one side, the other calls me back. Sings to me. I've tried to... harness it. And sometimes I can. I've got a nose for the NotThem. Or the... vampires. And regular old human monsters, once in a while. Cults. People who deserve killing. But I've stopped trying to control it. I can't. I don't have the strength.

It can't last much longer. I know it can't. The Hunt and The Slaughter are jealous siblings. They're so close to each other. I cannot have both. They can't both have me. Maybe I'll get myself killed, and I'll end up with neither. But it's soon. It's coming. I can feel it. Maybe... next weekend. Maybe that'll be it."

The tape runs once more, and the archivist and his guest sit in silence. Then without warning, Rae stands so fast their chair flies backwards, into the office door. Jonathan realizes their hand is millimetres from his throat, and their face is a snarl of inhuman rage. And under the collar of their jacket, he can see two chains, and even as he wonders whether this will be his end, he wonders what else they carry that makes them so dangerous.

Jonathan meets their eyes, bright green, burning with an intensity he has only seen in avatars whose goals are within their grasp.

And then, with the same speed they stood, they are out the door and gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will be a second chapter--heavy spoilers for Season 4!


End file.
